


We Go Forward

by justheretobreakthings



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, I have some feelings okay, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justheretobreakthings/pseuds/justheretobreakthings
Summary: A visit to the Castle of Lions leaves Keith with a lot to think about regarding his place on the team. Or, his lack thereof.





	We Go Forward

Keith wasn’t quite sure why he had started punching the wall the moment he was alone in his room – well, his old room. In fact, he didn’t even quite realize he was doing it. He just knew that after the hours spent here in the Castle of Lions, visiting his former teammates, something had built up in him, something volatile and ready to burst, and the wall was available and seemed as good a target to take out his frustrations on as any.

He didn’t expect to win the fight against the wall, of course. He didn’t really have a goal in mind there, he just needed to do  _something_.

This visit to Team Voltron was supposed to be a good thing. He’d been on non-stop missions with the Blade, and he hadn’t had the chance to even talk face-to-face with any of the other paladins since he’d first left. It was supposed to be almost a vacation of sorts, getting to relax for a quintant or two and seeing familiar faces and catching up.

He had missed that. He had missed them.

He took deep, if harsh, breaths as he dropped himself onto his bed, cradling his right hand in his left and feeling his fingers pulse from the blood slowly seeping out from those spots on his knuckles where the skin had split open. And he tried to keep his focus on that, rather than letting any errant thoughts latch on to any of today’s occurences to analyze.

_Keith had been surprised when, after the welcome back and the brief shop talk he waited through with Kolivan and Allura, the first Paladin to approach him had been an enthusiastic Lance. He was the first to insist on catching up, on telling him about what he’d missed during the time off the castle. Before that, though, there was something he wanted to show Keith, some big important news that he was keeping a surprise and that was going to blow Keith’s mind._

_“Trust me, man, you are going to love this!” He tugged Keith along the halls to the training deck before the latter could have a chance to get a word in edgewise, then swung around with a wide grin, hand on his bayard at his side. “Are you ready?” he asked._

_“Uh, yes?” Keith answered._

_Lance’s smile grew even broader, if that were even possible, and he lifted his bayard, which glowed as it transformed in his hand. Keith’s eyes widened._

_“Is - is that a - ?”_

_“Yep!” Lance said, cheerfully swinging the blade back and forth. “Guess you’re not the only master swordsman around anymore, huh?”_

_Keith couldn’t say a word, the sounds to do so lost somewhere in his throat. So Lance went on. “It’s a broadsword, and Allura says it’s just like the one King Alfor used to use. Which, I mean, damn, that’s gotta be a huge deal, right? So anyway – ” He lifted the sword so that the tip was pointed at Keith’s chest. “I figured, since you’re here, you and I could do some swordfighting practice. Me with my bayard, you with your Marmora blade. But I’ll warn you, I’m already pretty damn good with this thing. You up for it?”_

_Keith took a step back. A sword. Lance had a sword. The object looked foreign, alien, in Lance’s hand, even if the blue paladin held it with a practiced ease and confidence. The confidence was probably deserved; after all, it wasn’t just a sword but Alfor’s sword. The king, the first red paladin of Voltron. And Voltron had never deemed Keith worthy of any such honor._

_He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t hurt. After all, it wasn’t as if he had a monopoly on swordsmanship. Even if he had, it was meaningless if he wasn’t actually around and on the team anymore. There was nothing wrong with Lance taking up that new skill. Red probably had some influence over letting his bayard form that sword, and she liked Lance, took to him easily, didn’t need him to toss himself out of an airlock and nearly get himself killed before she relented and let him be her paladin…_

_Hastily he shoved those thoughts away. This was a good thing, something Lance was proud of. There was nothing wrong here. And if he was feeling slightly, inexplicably queasy right now, that was his own problem to deal with._

_“Actually,” he finally answered in a surprisingly steady voice. “I’m, um – I’m not really up to training right now. Just got here and all, still sore from the last mission.”_

_“What?” Lance said, raising a brow. “Since when does Keith Kogane not want to train? Come on, man, I haven’t had a chance to kick your ass in forever.”_

_“I know, I just – I just – I have to go.” He left the training deck too fast, leaving a confused Lance behind._

The spots of blood on the wall from where he’d struck his fist against it were already starting to darken as they dried. They stood out starkly on the otherwise bare wall. In the otherwise bare room.

The others had left the room exactly as it had been when Keith had left. And Keith had left the room exactly as it had been when he’d first arrived. That was something he had picked up over the years, keeping his room empty and pristine, not bothering with decoration. It was simply too much trouble. Every place he ever stayed at was temporary, and what was the point in filling a room and trying to make it your own if you were just going to have to pack it all back up again in a couple months’ time? So his approach was to never settle down in one spot, and never own more stuff than he could fit into a large duffel bag.

It had made the transition to the Blade of Marmora smoother, quicker. But now, for the first time, Keith was sort of regretting not having bothered to leave any mark on this place.

And not just in terms of his room.

_Meeting Lotor had been awkward. Even by Keith standards, and by Keith standards, every social encounter was awkward. Still, this had been the guy who Voltron had been viewing as enemy number one for so long, and now all of a sudden he was a trusted ally. They had mentioned it in their telecommunications with Kolivan, but Keith hadn’t really been ready to believe it until he saw it with his own two eyes._

_He’d been civil, if coolly so, as Lotor had greeted him and told him in that honey-dipped tone of his how glad he was to finally meet him face-to-face and outside of combat, and how important the new camaraderie between himself and Voltron was to him and to the galaxy._

_The others gave him the rundown of what all had happened between them and Lotor, and their slowly growing trust of him and the way he assisted the team and made use of his knowledge of the Galra empire and military. Keith could follow their thought process, he supposed. Sort of. It was a lot, a lot to hear about and a lot to have missed out on._

_But the rest of the team seemed to have, even if reluctantly, chosen to trust him, at least for now. Shiro had mentioned to him that Lotor had been a surprisingly useful teammate, even beyond his intel. “You can tell he was someone in line for a throne,” he’d said. “He’s stepped on some toes a couple of times, but I have to admit, he’s a leader at the core, and he’s a strategist as well, definitely knows what he’s doing in a battle.”_

_“Not to mention he’s actually a pretty amazing pilot,” Hunk added. “Like, you should be glad he’s not planning on enrolling at the Garrison anytime soon, because I don’t think you’d keep your records very long.”_

_“You don’t say,” Keith mumbled. The things they were saying didn’t bother him. Sure, he’d been the top pilot at the Garrison, but he knew full well that didn’t mean he was the best pilot, period. And so what if they were so easily able to endorse the charisma and leadership abilities of a former foe? Those had never been skills Keith had, or ever would be able to achieve, and that was fine. Everyone had their own talents to offer, he didn’t need those._

_And he certainly had no reason for his stomach to tie itself in knots as they talked._

The blood from his split knuckles was still flowing, even if slowly. He had by this point wrapped his hand into his shirt – his shirt, this was his first time wearing his actual day clothes instead of his Blade of Marmora uniform, and here he was already ruining the shirt by getting his bloodstains on it – and the dark blots on the already-dark material were slowly growing in size as more of the blood seeped out.

With a sigh, he stood up. He realized with reluctance that he was going to need some actual first-aid on his hand. Nothing major, just some gauze and bandaging, but more than what he had available in his empty room.

The hallway was empty when he left his room, and he ran into no one on his way to the med bay. That was a relief. Besides the obvious that he didn’t like it when people fretted over him, and someone might do that if they saw him on his way to the med bay, the injury was embarrassing. It had been his own fault, his own stupidity, punching that stupid wall, and it definitely would not help to shake anyone’s belief that he was ‘the hothead’. Lance especially would have no end of jokes about it.

He scolded himself as he walked. Why did he always have to do this to himself? It seemed most of the time when he was hurt, it was only because he _made_ himself hurt. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

_Lotor hadn’t been the only person Keith was only just now getting the chance to meet in person. Matt had brought a man out to meet him, a tired and worn man with a very familiar color to his eyes. He introduced himself as Sam Holt, and Keith gave his own introduction in return._

_“Wait a minute, I know you!” Sam exclaimed as he enthusiastically took Keith’s hand to shake. “You’re the boy from the Garrison, the one who was with Shiro at the Kerberos launch!”_

_Keith nodded, cautiously breaking off the handshake. “Yeah, that’s - that’s me.”_

_“Isn’t that something! Seems the Galaxy Garrison has a penchant for creating alumni with knacks for getting thrown into intergalactic conflict. You bring the grand total up to seven.”_

_Slowly Keith frowned. They way Sam was phrasing it, it seemed like Keith’s presence here was a total surprise to him, almost as if… “Wait, Pidge_ did _mention me at some point, didn’t she? Or - or Matt?”_

_Sam shook his head. “Suppose neither of them ever got around to it. To be fair, we’ve all been quite preoccupied.”_

_“Right. That makes sense.” He looked past Sam to where Pidge sat splayed across a sofa, laughing at something Lance had said. Had he really left that little an impression on her that he hadn’t even been mentioned when she’d told Sam all about her adventures in space? Had she really not even brought up his name?_

_Of course she hadn’t. There were much bigger details to focus on. The planets they’d saved and the ones with which they’d allied, the history and workings of Voltron, Pidge’s search for her family, their battles, their endgame. Why would he expect her to pepper into her stories details about the guy whose longest conversation with her had been him losing his temper at her for daring to put her family first? He had apologized sincerely afterward, and Pidge had insisted there were no hard feelings, and they barely spoke to each other since. Although, he barely spoke with Lance or Hunk either. Conversation-starting was yet another skill he had failed to grasp in any capacity. No wonder Pidge only ever thought of him as the loner._

_He forced a smile onto his face and half-listened and nodded along as Sam chatted with him, or at him, and he reminded himself over and over that it was okay, it was nothing he shouldn’t have been expecting anyway, there was no reason any of this should bother him in the least._

He started with the disinfectant when he reached the med bay. At least that got the worst of it over with first. He hated Altean disinfectant. It stung like the devil when he applied it to the open cuts, to the point where he had to bite down on his lip to keep from making noise. It probably would have been less painful to cauterize the wound.

But, despite the sting, the stuff worked. So he couldn’t complain. That was the main thing, after all. Gotta do whatever works.

_“I never got the chance to ask,” Coran said as the group sat down to dinner, one Hunk had made special on account of having guests joining them for the meal. “Did you ever get to catch any of the Voltron Show?”_

_“Only caught a few bits and pieces,” Keith answered, thinking back to those clips of footage from the propaganda shows that he’d glimpsed over their communications officer’s shoulder. “The stuff I saw was… interesting.”_

_“Ooh, that’s a rave review if I ever heard one,” Pidge laughed. “Wish we had a full recording of some of those shows. You’d love ‘em, they’re fantastic.”_

_Allura groaned and hid her hand behind her face. “I would be perfectly content never seeing a clip from those things for as long as I live. They were downright embarrassing.”_

_“Aw, come on,” Lance said, nudging her playfully. “They weren’t so bad. And you were always great. Seriously, you were a better Keith than Keith.”_

_Keith frowned and raised a brow. “What - what do you mean?”_

_“Well, someone had to play you in the show,” Pidge said._

_“But why – ?”_

_“And Allura does do a pretty fantastic Keith impression,” she continued. “There, she’s doing it now!” She pointed as Allura scowled, and the others all burst out laughing._

_Keith tried to laugh along, and must have succeeded, since the conversation carried on with no noticeable shift in tone or drop in energy. He looked down at his plate, full of Hunk’s amazing cooking, but for some reason he suddenly didn’t really feel hungry anymore. So he sank a little into his chair, letting the rest of the dinner go on around him while he treaded water in his own thoughts and tried his damnedest not to drown in them._

_This was good. This was a good thing. Meals at the Blade headquarters were dead silent, and he always tried to simply power through them and then leave. There was no reason he shouldn’t be enjoying a return to eating with a lively group of friends. There was no explanation he could fathom why being with them would leave him feeling more isolated than he’d been without them._

Carefully he began wrapping a bandage over the gauze he had applied to his bleeding knuckles. He only need a little bit of bandaging, something thin wrapped around his hand just a couple of time to hold the gauze in place. It wouldn’t even be noticeable once his gloves were on.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching, and swung toward the entryway, hoping against hope to see Shiro standing there, the way he did back in their Garrison days, when he’d be ready to chew him out for landing himself in yet another fight in order to mask how worried he was to see Keith with bandages on his hands or bruises on his face.

_“We had been thinking we could use some additional Blade operatives here, over on Rho-1-8 in the Firhdax system,” Shiro said, pointing to the spot on the vast map. “I didn’t know if perhaps you’d be up for the assignment. The rebels who are lodging there are short a mechanic, and I know you have a knack for vehicles. Kolivan said that you’d been starting to get the hang of actually following orders on missions, and so we were thinking, in addition to our outpost, you’d be within easy reach of this Galra communication center in the same system. That’s something we could definitely use to our advantage.”_

_“Yeah,” Keith said, nodding along. “Yeah, I can – I can do that. Hey, um, Shiro?”_

_“Yes?”_

_Keith swallowed, starting to run his thumb along his forefinger as he kept his eyes on the map. “I know that this stuff is important and all, but I was wondering, for a little while, could we just – you know, talk?”_

_Shiro raised a brow. “About what?”_

_“About – I dunno. Just, stuff. What we’ve been up to?”_

_“You know what I’ve been up to,” Shiro said. “We’ve been keeping the Blade updated and even assembling mission reports for Kolivan.”_

_“Well, yeah, I know that, but I meant, like, stuff besides missions and coalition work. It’s just, um, we haven’t really actually gotten to just talk since – since I, uh, went away,” he finished weakly._

_Shiro sighed. “Keith, it’s not like I’ve been avoiding you or anything. I’ve been busy. You’ve been busy. I’m up for some idle chit-chat as much as the next guy is, but not until_ after _we’re finished up with our actual work.”_

_“Yeah, but – ”_

_“I promise we can sit down and have a nice long bonding time once we have the time to spare for it. But that isn’t right at this moment.”_

_Keith looked up at Shiro, trying to catch his eye, but Shiro was staring down at the map. Not in the way Keith had been a moment ago, staring just for the sake of keeping his eyes somewhere, but actually examining it, studying it. All-serious, all-business. “Right,” he said softly. “Right, sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Now, um, where did you say you wanted me stationed?”_

_With another sigh, Shiro jabbed a finger of his metal hand to the spot on the map. “Rho-1-8. You’ve got to pay attention, Keith. This is important."_

He tried not to look too disappointed when it was Kolivan standing there when the door slid open. The galra stood still in the doorway for a long minute, staring at Keith.

“You were not in your room,” he said tonelessly.

“You were looking for me?” Keith asked.

“Yes,” Kolivan answered.

“Why?”

“Because you were not in your room.”

Keith sighed. “Well, you found me. I’m just finishing up here, I’ll be back in my room in a minute.”

He continued his process of bandaging his hand, and Kolivan watched, face impassive. As Keith tucked in the ends of the bandage, Kolivan spoke again. “You are doing that incorrectly.”

Keith blinked up at him. “What?”

Kolivan nodded toward Keith’s gauze-wrapped hands. “You’re wrapping that too tightly. You’ll cut off your circulation.”

“Oh.”

“Do you require any assistance?” Kolivan asked when Keith made no move to correct the bandages.

“No, no, I’m good, I - I, uh…” He looked back at his hand and sighed. “Actually, yeah, that would be - thanks.”

Kolivan stepped into the room and took Keith’s hand. With a little grunt of disapproval, he unraveled the bandage that Keith had put in place and began wrapping it again, looser this time. Keith watched him carefully. He wasn’t gentle, but he wasn’t rough either. Just clinical. That was Kolivan’s manner at all times, really. He came across as blunt, but not harsh. Never had any personal investment in the Blades, but never had anything against them either. That is, as far as Keith could tell. Kolivan was not an easy person to read.

“Do you ever miss them?” he suddenly blurted out as Kolivan was finishing up.

He didn’t answer. Instead he paused, and silently tilted his head, an invitation for Keith to either double back or elaborate. Keith chose the latter.

“The - the Blades. The ones who don’t come back. Like - like Antok and Thace and Ulaz, and Regris. Do you miss them?”

Kolivan was silent again for a while, probably thinking it over, before he slowly answered, “I regret that lives may be lost in the pursuit of freedom from an unjust empire. I acknowledge the void left in their place, and I recognize the impact they had before they went. I note their absence and, would a means be made available to recover those lost without sacrificing other lives in their place, I would not hesitate to seize the opportunity.”

“But you don’t miss them.”

“I cannot afford to. We are at war, Keith. There will be casualties. If you were to fixate on every fatality, if you were to mourn every loss, you would destroy yourself. No good would come of it.”

Keith felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “What about if a Blade is gone, but not dead? What then?”

“If they are captured, do you mean?”

“No, like… if they left. If they chose to leave the Blade.”

“No one has ever left the Blade.”

Keith’s brows shot up. “No one?”

“Loyalty and dedication are two of the Blade’s important pillars of strength. When someone becomes a member, they are making a massive commitment. They are overhauling their entire life. That is not a decision one makes lightly, and not one that one can easily go back on.”

“Oh,” Keith said softly.

“Is something troubling you?”

He shook his head. “No. No, nothing. Just been… thinking. About some stuff.”

“I’d assumed paying a visit to your former colleagues would be rather an enjoyable experience for you,” Kolivan said. “But you appear to be agitated.”

“It’s nothing. I’m just – I’m just tired, is all.”

He wasn’t sure whether or not Kolivan actually bought it, but either way, he accepted it as an answer. He nodded and stood up, and Keith pulled his hand back toward him to examine Kolivan’s work. “Well, you can return to your room now,” Kolivan said. “Get some rest. We had back tomorrow and I hope you’ll be ready to get to work right away. Additionally… I think it would do you good.”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks, Kolivan.”

Kolivan nodded and left, and, after a few long moments of long, silent breaths in an attempt to ground himself, Keith followed.

They said their goodbyes early the next morning, not long after breakfast. The paladins each gave Keith a perfunctory hug, and he forced himself not to hold the hugs for too long, not to linger. He was fine, he was okay, he didn’t need to cling to his teammates. He’d left before, he was leaving again, and there was nothing for him to get worked up about.

He’d made the decision, it was his  _own_  decision, and it was too late now to go back. Too late to change his mind.

He lifted his hand in a wave as he and Kolivan moved toward their ship, the little two-person vessel parked in the hangar. “I’ll, uh, I’ll miss you guys.”  _Ask me to stay._

Allura smiled at him. “We’ll miss you too. Good luck with your missions.”  _We don’t need you to._

“Could be a while before have the chance meet up again,” said Shiro. “So, keep in touch.”  _We don’t want you to._

And that was it. Keith stepped into the ship, the door hissed closed behind him. Kolivan was piloting, so he could watch through the window, keep an eye on the paladins and then on the castle as they moved further away, smaller and smaller until they were out of sight.

He forced himself to face forward then, and tried to move his thoughts to Blade work. He couldn’t dwell on Voltron. It would only hurt. And besides, what would the point be? It wasn’t as if he were going to try to change things, to return to the castle and shake up the team dynamic and throw a wrench into the works. They were doing fine without him. _Thriving_ without him.

The rest of them had all moved on. So why the hell couldn’t he?

**Author's Note:**

> Please direct all anon hate to [my tumblr](https://justheretobreakthings.tumblr.com).


End file.
